by Ian Neligh
A Rooftop Meeting
The building was some sort of old office complex. The lights, which still worked, helped me to see the stairwells were covered in graffiti. Cigarette butts and beer cans peered from the corners and dusty places. I hoped to ask The Raven about the tampered-with evidence. His answer would make the story.
I made my way up the main flight of stairs to the roof. As I turned the last corner I saw a man sitting on the last set of steps before the roof’s exit door. The man had short blond hair, was dressed in a dark gray suit, and wore glasses. He stood and held out a nervous hand.
“You the reporter?” he asked.
“Jack Norman,” I said, shaking his hand.
“I’m Sax. We spoke on the phone. I’m the public representative for The Raven,” he said.
I looked up past him at the door. “Is he here yet?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said in a small voice. The man looked a little worried. “I only just got here myself.”
He handed me his card, which I took. It was simple and clean on heavy stock.
“I’m here to go over some quick ground rules with you,” he said.
“Ground rules?” I asked, looking back at him.
“Right. The Raven is here to speak with the press, not to be asked questions by them. He will tell you if what he’s saying is on the record or not. No photos, and don’t try to shake his hand.”
“Sounds perfect,” I said, lying and smiling with all my teeth. “What is this all about anyway?”
“I haven’t a clue,” he said, walking down the rest of the steps. Then, giving me a half smile, he said, “Good luck, Mr. Norman.”
Then he disappeared back down the staircase.
I passed through the door labeled “Leave Shut” and stepped out onto the gravel-covered roof. It was dark, but enough light from the city washed away all but the deepest of the shadows. I took in the scene with a quick three-sixty and saw that I was still alone.
I walked to the edge and peered down at the empty parking lot. There, I saw Jonathan Sax walk back to where he’d parked his car along the street, get in, and drive off.
I felt tired and a little unsteady, so I took a cautious step away from the edge. It was far enough to the ground that you’d likely not spring back to your feet after bouncing off it. Plus, the thought of falling off a building while waiting to interview a superhero was mortifying enough to warrant any extra safety measures. I turned back around and spotted a tall dark figure standing on the opposite side of the roof.
He was here. I smiled and waved. The figure didn’t move or react in any way.
“Howdy,” I said, making my way over to him. If he was going to be mysterious and silent, the least he could have done was magically appear directly behind me, saving me the long, awkward walk across the roof. I’d thought maybe I would have to repress some laughter when faced with the sight of a full-grown man in a bird costume, but the effect was not funny.
He wore what looked like black interconnecting armored plates with a segmented metallic cape. Hiding his face was a gargoyle mask that might have looked like a bird if you were vacationing in the ninth level of hell.
His eyes were two blue glowing orbs embedded deeply in the mask, which also seemed to give off a high-pitched whine. The whole package looked like a highly developed and expensive combat suit—and it was menacing in the extreme.
The man standing before me didn’t look remotely human.
I held out my hand and smiled. “Hi, I’m Jack Norman.”
Laying Low
There’s a holy trinity of terrible interview types.
First there’s the nut job. The nut job believes whatever rambling half-coherent idiocy they spew forth like an overactive public toilet is the most important story you could ever write. They believe you’re lucky to be talking to them, and they throw out phrases like “this is the story that’s going to make your career.”
The truth is they’ve rolled out of crazy land, and you have to nod and agree politely to get them to leave you alone.
The second type is the cop. The cop generally feels overexposed if you start talking to them about pretty much anything. They become tight-lipped and quiet and shrink away from people asking questions, like roaches do from sunlight. When they are forced to talk with the press, it’s in one-word answers not suitable for print or anyone with an IQ over thirty.
Then there’s the politician. The politician is a mirror image of the cop, but instead of not answering questions by intentionally being vague, the politician doesn’t answer questions by way of spewing incoherent catchphrases and stream-of-consciousness-type rambling.
I wondered if The Raven would be a combination of all of the above.
“I have an announcement to make to the public,” he said in a voice that sounded vaguely synthesized. It wasn’t enough to make him sound like a robot, it was just enough that he didn’t sound quite normal either.
I nodded, taking out my notebook and pen.
“Okay,” I said, ready to put pen to paper.
He began speaking: “I have in my possession certain evidence that I believe implicates the murderer in the death of Bill Mayweather.”
Whatever it was I half expected The Raven to tell me, it didn’t look or sound anything like this. It felt like the ground was ripped out from under my feet.
Before I could fully grasp what he’d just said, he continued in his synthetic tone.
“Bill Mayweather is the man you reported on, found by police yesterday morning in the alley.”
“How did you identify—who is the murderer?” I asked.
“You need to discover that for yourself. I can’t become directly involved,” he said. “The evidence is a piece of video I removed from a security tape. I’ll see that you get it.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand. Why would you alter the video?”
“The police cannot be trusted,” he said.
“What about the two detectives that helped you—the two dead detectives?”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Not all of them are corrupt.”
“Why me?” I asked. “You’re the superhero. If you know who it is, why don’t you just track the murderer down?”
“When you discover who it is, you’ll realize this is the only way it can be done,” he said. “We’ve tried the other ways, and now it’s just me. I’m the only one left. They’ve all either gone underground or…” His words trailed off, and I could hear the faint electric hum coming off his suit. “You’ll find Mayweather has a widow living in the city.”
I tried to ask another question, but he cut me off. “You have enough. After this I’m laying low for a while.” He stepped back into the shadows.
Nasty Business
The next morning I was standing in Six Points, a decaying industrial area. A place where dead factories cozied up to semi-abandoned train yards and two-hundredyear-old soft brick buildings. I stood under an L train as it rattled overhead, shaking free excess water like a dog made from rust. Mayweather’s widow, Norma, held a residence in an ancient brick building under the tracks. She was the one who’d identified his body for the police earlier that morning when the ID was finally made public. That was fine by me; I didn’t want to be the one to tell her that her husband was dead—or that I found out the information from a man with glowing eyes.
The Raven—why was The Raven, or any of the other capes for that matter, going into hiding? I felt like I almost had the answer, almost had the whole thing pieced together, but couldn’t connect the dots. I decided to keep my mind focused on the task at hand.
The building had all the charm of a used syringe in the hands of a homicidal lunatic. I chuckled—being a reporter always took me to the nicest places.
I made my way past a group of men in front of a burning oil drum and into the building’s entrance. I glanced at the brass mailboxes on the wall and spotted one for N. Mayweather in Room 12. I walked up the narrow wooden stair
s to the second floor and wandered down the hallway until I spotted her residence. At the foot of the door was an ancient welcome mat. I heard a TV inside playing out the sounds of a tired daytime game show. I tentatively knocked and waited. After a moment the TV went silent, then the door opened slowly and a black cat peeked out and looked up at me.
“Ma’am, I’m a reporter with the Daily Municipal. I was wondering if I could ask you some quick questions for a story I’m working on.”
A white-haired woman in her eighties opened the door fully and walked back into the apartment. “Come in,” she said, sounding angry and sad. I followed her in and closed the door behind me. “The police were here this morning and told me they found William. Make sure to lock it.” She motioned to the door, then wandered off to what I presumed was the kitchen.
I did and looked around. The place was small and cluttered. Books, magazines, and old photos covered every available surface. The place smelled like boiled cabbage and cat. My favorites. I waited in the living room until she returned moments later, a cup of tea in hand. I took it from her and accepted the sofa seat she offered with a gesture of her hand. She sat in a brown recliner.
She sipped her tea, and I pretended to do the same. The train rumbled above us, causing the room to shake slightly. I had to steady my teacup.
“I knew this was going to happen,” she said. Her eyes were red and tired.
The cat rubbed itself against the side of my leg and looked up at me with its own green eyes.
“What’s that?” I asked.
She looked up, startled. “Something he and the boys used to talk about, something about the war,” she said, motioning to a black-and-white photo on a bookshelf. “For years they were planning…something.”
I got up to take a closer look. The photo showed American GIs during World War II. I turned to look at her. “Do you mind if I take a closer look?”
“Suit yourself.” She waved at the photo, disgusted with the whole mess. I picked up the image. None of the soldiers looked particularly pleased. I flipped it over and saw the black cardboard backing had four names written with a silver metallic marker, but there were five men in the picture. I spotted Mayweather’s name second from the top, and at the bottom was Sam Keegan, the man I’d found in the paper’s archive. I turned it back over. A lantern-jawed man in the group looked familiar.
“William was a secretive man,” she said, peering at me over her cup. “He never talked about his time in the Pacific. Whatever he did was a secret, one he took with him to his grave.”
I stared hard at the picture, trying to find some clue I might have missed.
“I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. I told the police everything I know. He went out one night for some odds and ends and just never came back,” she said. Another train rumbled by, shaking the room.
“Are any of these other men still reachable?” I asked.
“I don’t know who that big guy is but”—she looked back over the years like a time traveler—“I suppose Andy Seabrook and Lance Kinny are still alive and probably living somewhere nearby.”
I nodded, thinking about her use of the word “probably.”
A Murder of Crows
The questions I had surrounding the death of Bill Mayweather were like birds in a cornfield. Illusive, constantly changing, and growing in number, like a murder of crows.
After jotting down the four names on the back of the photograph, I thanked Mayweather’s widow and headed back down the narrow apartment steps to the street below.
With my mind on a hundred different things, I almost didn’t notice that something was wrong when I stepped back outside. The men huddled by the burning oil drum were gone, though the fire still crackled away in the cold, wet air. Pulling up my collar, I headed out from under the tracks and made a beeline for my car parked across the street. As I passed a column supporting the train, I spotted one of the men trying to look nonchalant. He was bald and sported a ragged beard, and had the look of a tough guy several years past his prime. He looked angry.
“What are you lookin’ at, jackass?” he said as I passed by him. “You want me to bite your face off?”
I hesitated and looked at him. “What are you? Some kind of mentally stunted Tyrannosaurus rex?” I asked, only a few feet from my car.
He started walking toward me, hiding something behind his back. Another train rattled by above us. “Hey, let me ask you a question,” he said over the din. I got to my car and unlocked the door. “Hey, man, let me ask you a question,” he said again.
He was getting close, and I wouldn’t be able to get into my car before he reached me. I turned just as he rushed me holding a sharpened screwdriver with duct tape on the handle. He stabbed at my stomach, and I moved aside, grabbing his hand.
Swearing and cursing, he struggled with me against the side of my car. He was strong and trying like hell to stab me. Using all of my strength, I pushed the makeshift weapon away, but he was starting to overpower me and angle it back.
“I just have a quick question,” he yelled through his rotted teeth.
I imagined him stabbing me in quick succession—one, two, three—then leaving me bleeding next to my car’s tire. He drove forward at me, and I turned to the side. The screwdriver stuck into my car door. My hands occupied, I stomped out at his leg. My foot connected with his knee, which folded in half like old wood.
He dropped to the street and grimaced, closing his eyes and holding his leg. Feeling dizzy and with my heart pounding, I stepped behind him and kicked him into the side of my car. He fell hard, choking and writhing in agony. I yanked the sharpened tool out of my car door and flung it into the street, then kicked him in the gut and repressed some dark need to stomp his head in. I then leaned down toward him and snarled, “Care to explain?”
“Needed money,” the man wheezed.
I looked up and saw a white van pull away from the curb a block away. I was still watching as it disappeared into the city.
The Long Lunch
Driving back to the paper with wind whistling through the new hole in my door, I found myself composed and clearheaded. I’d never really thought of myself as much of a fighter. Of course, I figure you don’t really have to be a trained killer to beat up on some homeless drifter with bad teeth. The fight didn’t rattle my nerves as much as my growing suspicion that someone had paid him to leave me ventilated in the middle of the street.
As I drove the wet streets, I kept checking my rearview mirror for a white van. I didn’t see one. The interior of my car was freezing, so I turned up the heat and rubbed warmth back into my fingers. The snow was mostly gone, but the city seemed somehow colder. Back at the office I called the police department to get an update on the status of their newly-complicated investigation. All I got were Polar’s and Calhoun’s voice mails. I talked to a female receptionist, who told me Calhoun was out sick and Polar would be in meetings for the entire day. How does this happen? The day after two murders and a sprinkling of corruption and no one was available to take calls from the press?
“Brilliant,” I said. “I’ll just grab a long lunch while I wait for the MCPD to get its shit together.” I hung up and leaned back in my chair, ignoring the sounds of ringing phones and conversations around me. It was time to start thinking about my next move. I looked up at the ceiling, hoping to see a magical answer. Mr. Fernley came into view.
“Norman, I hope you are well on your way to wrapping up that article.”
I followed him back to his office, and I put everything out on the table: the tampered-with evidence, The Raven, the deaths—everything. I showed him the old article and hinted at a conspiracy involving Calhoun.
“It’s probably not involving Calhoun. Despite being the world’s biggest jackass, it was that investigation that put him behind a desk. If I recall, it was badly handled; it ruined his career.”
I was about to make a quip about his incompetence, when I remembered something similar had happened to me. I kept silent.
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br /> Mr. Fernley stood up from his chair. “Jack if there’s a story involving capes, police corruption, and murder, I want it on my desk either way. No matter what. Now go get it.”
Talking to the cops, for now, was a dead end—that is until they did some serious housecleaning. I had the names from the back of the photo, and that was something that no one else had. I decided to pull up the addresses and phone information for Andy Seabrook and Lance Kinny on an investigative website I kept bookmarked on my computer. I scrolled down the page, reading about various veteran’s advocacy groups when I saw an article about how Andy Seabrook, a recreational pilot, had died flying his single-engine Cessna 182 into the ground several years ago. The cause of the death was pilot error.
Lance Kinny was more difficult to find, but after putting his name into several specialty search engines I found he was living in a trailer park just outside of town.
I caught Sal headed back into the paper.
“Sal, how’s your day playing out?”
“Disenfranchised, feeling used, thinking about going into another career field—maybe plumbing,” he said, looking tired.
“I got a lead, want to come along?
“I love this job. We’ll take my car,” he said.
My Kind of Place
The sun dangled above the city like a wet penny. I pulled the visor down as I ran through all the possible questions I wanted to ask Kinny. The streets were still soaking, but the clouds had all but dried up. The lunch rush was also out in full force. Sal navigated the complicated and dangerous highways and byways of the city like a student falling asleep at a lecture.
He spent so much time in his car driving from one photo assignment to the next that I imagine he just put himself on autopilot and let his subconscious do most of the heavy lifting.
“So, mon capitaine, what’s your plan of attack?” he asked, merging into a lane without bothering to check his mirrors.
I made a conscious decision to stop hitting my imaginary brake pedal on the floor. It wasn’t doing any good anyway.